Homemade Pasta

Yes, folks. Homemade pasta.

I have always considered pasta something that one buys, or comes from a tree or whatever. I just never put that much thought into it. But some time ago, I began to wonder just what would homemade pasta entail. How much work goes into it? I mean it had to originate somewhere besides a pasta factory. So I did a little online sleuthing and came up with the following recipe for egg noodles:

2 cups of flour
a few dashes of baking powder
and 2 largish eggs
Some water and salt

Many recipes say to do this part on the counter but I chickened out and did this part in a large mixing bowl. Combine flour, baking powder and a dash of salt. Make a well in the center. Add eggs. Mix with a fork from the center until dough becomes sticky. Then work it together with your hands, adding water a little at a time until dough is pliable. This part is supposed to be part of the 'magic' or 'art' or 'science' or whatever it is that separates magical cooking type of people from those of us who eat cereal a lot. Anyway, when the dough "feels right" roll it into a ball.

In several recipes this part calls for the use of a pasta machine but, my favorite recipe said that Italian grandma's have been doing this just fine with their bare hands for generations, so that's how I elected to do it. On a well floured surface knead the dough until smooth. Divide into three or four small segments. Roll one section as flat as you would like for it to be and then cut with a knife or pizza cutter into long or short, flat strips. These strips can be laid out to dry or hung up on a wire rack. They can also be plunged immediately into fast boiling water, but this part is tricky.

I wanted to go ahead and use my pasta so I already had a pot of salted water boiling rapidly. Once I sliced up my pasta into small rectangles I took my large spatula and scooped it up off the counter and into the hot water. The directions said to stir keep the water boiling and stir frequently to keep pasta from sticking, and only to boil for about 3-4 minutes since pasta is already soft.

When I felt like the pasta was done, (more 'magic cooking art') I drained it out. This yielded probably about 1/2 of pasta or two helpings.

I ate mine with some chicken soup that I had made with leftover chicken and veggies in a chicken broth. It was quite tasty. Even my husband approved, saying that they seemed a lot heartier than what you would buy at the store.

While the turnout of the noodles was nowhere near the store bought kind (they seemed more like dumplings), I did enjoy the process and hope to set aside a day for pasta making sometime in the near future. This way we can have some on hand, I will get practice at it, and most importantly I WILL KNOW WHAT I AM EATING!! which is really what this whole experiment is about.

Easy Curry Gravy and Pasta Mystery

I made curry gravy. No, you don't understand. I made curry gravy.

And I didn't even measure anything.

Here's what I did.

A dollop of margarine, melted in a frying pan. (about a Tablespoon)
A Tablespoon of flour.
About 1/2 cup of liquid (stock, water, or milk for a creamier sauce).
Stir until slightly bubbly on lowish heat.
Add about 1/2 a teaspoon of curry powder, or more to taste.
Stir just about a minute more until smooth.

Remove from heat. Sauce will thicken.

I ate mine with rice, leftover chicken and a dollup of yummy homemade hummus (yummus?) for lunch today. Mmmm. I still feel sort of like a brain surgeon when I figure stuff like this out. I don't know why it's such a mystery, but it is. I'm sure I can't be the only one who feels this way.

In other news we at the Gothgirl household have a tendency to nibble in the evenings while watching out winding down TV for the day. However last night for dinner we had a lovely pasta dish with some ground pork, mushrooms and spinach. The difference between this dish and our usual fare was that this time the pasta was whole wheat pasta instead of regular pasta. Yum. As the evening progressed I realized I still felt quite full and satisfied and had NO urge to nibble or graze or whatever you want to call evening snacking. Hm. I am wondering if there is a connection between the whole wheat vs. white pasta and the full tummy feelings. I shall research and report back.

My Own Thoughts

So that's really what started it all (See previous post.), this obsession of mine with natural foods and ingredients and what not.

Dinnertime should not be a game of Russian Roulette. Our food supply has become way too massively toxic and our health care system is not much better, in fact what happened to us is, in my opinion criminal.

Since that time a year ago, I can recall (no pun intended) at least three national food recalls that I have seen on the news. Not to mention the ones we did not hear about. Just within the last month there have been two in the local news.

That being said, food and cooking has always been rather a mystery to me. I understand how to follow a recipe in the sense that if I follow the directions, stuff turns into food. But what I don't understand is how to make substitutions or what to add if I want this to do that or whatever. So the cooking blog seemed like just the right medium for me to explore the cooking phenom and to see what I can do. I figured why not? Everyone who wants to can go on this little journey with me and we can all explore cooking together. Of course I would like to take a moment to encourage everyone to shop locally, take advantage of farmer's markets and co-ops, and buy fresh raw ingredients.

The Beef Stock situation, part 1

Soup stock has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I'm not sure why, but I have never really understood the science behind it. I know it is fairly easy and takes a long time to boil, but that has been the extent of my stock knowledge. Until recently. I have always wanted to explore making homemade soup stock and recently I did so. First I researched several recipes and methods including a phone call to my cooks-everything-from-scratch sister. The time allotted for boiling ranged anywhere from a mere four hours to a full 24-36 hour investment if you have a crock pot. I do not have a crock pot so I improvised a little. I started in the early afternoon and boiled for about eight hours. Then refrigerated everything and boiled around eight more hours the next day. But I am getting ahead of myself. First I collected the following ingredients:

Beef rib bones

1 Onion

2 Carrots

Some celery

2 cloves of garlic

and you are supposed to add about a quarter cup of vinegar or lemon juice to help leach all the calcium out of the bones.

Chop everything maybe once or twice. Don't bother peeling the onion or anything. Just throw it all in the pot with about 8 cups of water.

I brought all of this to a boil, put on a lid and turned it down to simmer. I regularly checked on it and kept adding a small amount of water as it boiled down. About four hours in, I realized that I had forgotten the vinegar. So I did. Of course having read so many recipes and heard so many suggestions, I accidentally added a cup and a half of vinegar. This is not recommended.

At this point I also drained out the veggies by pouring the stock into a strainer over a large bowl. I picked out the bones to add back in, but threw away the vegetables. I always thought this was a waste, but it turns out that all of the vitamins and what not have been leached into the broth/ water so now your stock is becoming really healthy and the vegetables have become pretty much useless. Yay. So I added the bones back it and put it all back on the stove, returned to a boil and put it back down to simmer some more.

Whew!

Once bedtime rolled around I let the broth cool, then poured it into a large bowl with a lid, bones and all and stuck it in the refridgerator.

The next morning I put it back in the pan, returned to boil and turned it back down to simmer for about another eight hours.

Stay tuned for part two!

Find the Food!!

Ladies and Gentlemen! Let's play "Find the Food"!! Listed below are actual ingredients written from a can of vegetable stock that I, GothGirl recently purchased.

INGREDIENTS: VEGETABLE BLEND (FROM WATER, CARROT, CELERY, ONION JUICE CONCETRATE), WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, SALT, MONOSODIUM GLUTIMATE, DEXTROSE, AUTOLYZED YEAST EXTRACT, NATURAL FLAVORS, DISODIUM INOSINATE AND DISODIUM GUANYLATE, CARROT POWDER, EXTRACT OF CARROT

Since 'from concentrate' isn't really real because it was first boiled down and then reconstituted, I don't really count that as food, and 'powder' isn't really real because carrots are not in their natural form, powdery, and extract isn't really real either because if it were the actual thing then that would be listed. And everything else is either a chemical or a sugar (or both!), so then the only thing left is 'natural flavors'. Hm. I can think of a lot of natural flavors that I prefer not be in my soup.

Let's say just say that I am henceforth jumping on the 'make your own soup stock' band wagon.

Beef Broth and Local Veggies.

So I've been thinking about trying to be more stretchery with our food supply and my sister's blog gave me a bit of an inspiration. We recently enjoyed some ribs (homegrown at that) that my MIL brought us and I thought about saving the bones to make some stock. Seeing as we constantly have, like eight tupperware thingys of leftover vegetables in our fridge at any given time, I thought it might be cool to make some stock to throw together some soupage for lunches and what not. Stock, veggies and a handful of elbows just to round it out. Or maybe drop biscuits depending on my mood. I haven't made the stock yet but I will post on how it goes. First I have to go buy some onions.

That being said there is a fabbo little veggie stand on Southland Drive. She has said that she tries to sell at prices that rival the grocery store. She also stays out on days different than Sunday. I want to say Tuesday and some other day, but I can't find her website. I'll have to keep an eye out and find out.